


Escalating Conflict

by reapergrimm



Category: Kim Possible (Cartoon)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Drama, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-30
Updated: 2020-03-30
Packaged: 2021-03-01 03:20:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,312
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23387998
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reapergrimm/pseuds/reapergrimm
Summary: After Gill escapes Dr. Lurkin's lab in Colorado, Team Possible manage to track him down to the East Texas Swamplands. But a midnight hunt in a moonlit bog isn't the most stressful thing that will test Kim on the mission.
Kudos: 1





	Escalating Conflict

** **

** Escalating Conflict **

_The usual boilerplate disclaimer. I do not own Kim Possible. Kim Possible is the intellectual property of the Walt Disney Corporation and the creation of Bob Schooley and Mark McCorkle._

_Jen Credible and Dave Seer are the creations of Blackbird._

Ron slapped the back of his neck as he and Kim trudged through the swamplands around them, the waders and rubber overalls that covered their normal mission wear sloshing as they moved.

“KP, if a swarm of these bugs come after me, I am going to run back to the Sloth and not look back.”

“Yet more Camp Wannaweep flashbacks, Ron?” Kim asked in a teasing way.

“I can't help it! We're in the middle of a bug-infested swamp looking for Gill. Between the bugs, the smell and my mutant childhood bully lurking around here somewhere, of course this is going to make me think of the most evil place on earth!”

The full moon's light barely shined through the trees, making visibility an absolute nightmare. As such, Kim and Ron were forced to use flashlights to see even 20 feet in front of them. Not the ideal situation, since the light was either going to make them easier targets for Gill to ambush or prompt him to continue hiding.

“I still don't get how Gill got from Dr. Lurkin's lab in Colorado all the way to East Texas on foot. Somebody had to have spotted him somewhere.” Kim puzzled to herself.

As if by cue, the Kimmunicator's signature beeping seemed to answer her question. “Go, Wade.”

“I've got something on Gill. Pull up the holomap,”

Pressing an icon on the Kimmunicator's touchscreen, a spherical projection shot up from Kim's wrist mounted computer. “This is so much better than trying to read everything on a small window screen. Thanks for the upgrade again, Wade.”

Waving his hand in playfully dismissive manner while keeping a large grin on his face Wade responded, “Aw, think nothing of it. Anyway, back to the mission.”

The projection showed a map of the western states, with a main focus of a remote section of the Colorado Rockies. A red trail then began to make its way through Colorado and into Texas before stopping in the East Texas Swamplands.

“I've been monitoring Gill's movements ever since he mutated himself again and escaped Dr. Lurkin's lab. It was a good thing that after Gill's last mutation Dr. Lurkin had Gill fitted with a tracking microchip. And it seems to have been the right move, all things considered. Because it's getting weird.”

“Weirder than the fact that Gill found a way to apparently mutate himself _again_ after Dr. Lurkin's team cleaned up that toxic grotto at Camp Wannaweep?” Kim asked.

“About that. Turns out Dr. Lurkin's team didn't completely destroy the toxic water from the grotto. They took some samples before they purified the area. Apparently they wanted to study the mutagenic properties of such concentrated toxic waste.”

“Yeah, that would be a bad idea on the best of days. But they kept it in the same facility as Gill. So... majorly bad idea on their part.” Ron chimed in.

“They _are_ scientists that specialize in studying genetic mutations. Even if they do like to cure mutants, they have to know how the mutations can happen in the first place.” Wade stated.

“Focus, guys. Wade, you said you found something weird about Gill's escape?”

“Right. Turns out, Gill's current mutation wasn't that noticeable at first. With the right clothes and coverings, he could have passed for human. But once he started to move into the wetlands the further south he got, I found reports of mutilated wildlife and livestock. I think Gill has been eating wild animals like, well, a wild animal.”

“That does not sound like good news Wade!” Ron said as he jumped after an owl hooted up in the trees.

“Agreed.” Kim said with a mild look of discomfort on her face.

“It doesn't get much better. Local authorities found inhuman footprints around where these animals were attacked. But take a look at this.” The map of the states shifted to forensic reports Wade pulled from police servers. There were photographs and cement molds of webbed feet taken from the mud.

“Those are definitely Gill's footprints. What about them?” Kim asked.

“Look closer.” Wade answered as he pulled up multiple photos of the footprints and placed them side by side. It wasn't difficult to see that the footprints were...

“Are they getting...'gulp' _bigger_?” Ron asked nervously.

“Afraid so. Going by the increased length, width and depth of the footprints, Gill has been growing the more animals he gets to feed on.”

“Okay, major ick factor. We've got to bring him in before this gets any worse.” Kim asserted as she cut the link with Wade.

Kim and Ron continued to press onwards in the swamp. Both young heroes were checking the waters around them and listening to ambient noise of the bog's wildlife. Anything out of the ordinary would give them the opportunity to react to Gill's movements. If and when he decided to strike.

After what seemed like hours of marching through a fetid marsh and getting nothing for it, something happened. The rustling of the nearby brush got both Kim and Ron jumpy, but they quickly braced themselves for an attack. However, what emerged was probably the last thing they expected to find in this swampland. Because a young man in his early to mid twenties pushed his way through the undergrowth.

He was wearing a brown leather jacket over a red superhero t-shirt. His blue jeans were caked with muck from the swamp and his shoulder-length brown hair was littered with stuck leaves and twigs. Yet despite the grunge all over his clothes, he was still recognizable to Team Possible.

“Dave?” Kim and Ron asked together in an incredulous tone.

“Kim Possible and Ron Stoppable. Why am I not surprised to find you two out here?” Dave asked with a little mirth to his voice despite his apparent fatigue.

“We could ask you the same thing!” Kim responded.

With a quizzical tone, Ron asked, “Dude, you're a long way from California, What are you doing out here?”

“Me and Jen are tracking some manner of swamp monster that's been scaring some locals. Though if you two here, I'm guessing the beastie we're after isn't some manner of cryptid.”

Somewhat deflated, Kim hesitantly asked, “Jen is here?” Kim hadn't forgotten the Possible Family Reunion a few months back. She still hadn't fully gotten over the somewhat sobering reality of the type of person her cousin Jen was actually like.

“She's somewhere around here. She sent me forward as 'bait'. Not the first time she's done this, mind you. After all we've been through, I have complete trust in her capabilities.”

“That's kind of callous, man.” Ron stated.

Dave playfully punched Ron in his shoulder, “This from the man who used to brag about being the distraction whenever people asked what he contributed to Kim's missions?”

“You didn't answer Ron's question. What are you doing here?”

“It's nothing really. We helped somebody a while back, they moved out to Texas, and when the 'swamp monster' started to make everybody nervous they called the agency. As for how we got out here, my car got enchanted like, ages ago so it could travel between planes of reality. I could drive from California to the Great Pyramids of Giza in under three hours.”

The beeping of a walkie-talkie interrupted Dave's banter with Team Possible. As he brought up his shortwave radio from a pocket inside his jacket, Jen's voice could be heard over the speaker.

“You seem pretty chatty with whoever is down there, Dave. Are you going to fill me in on who is behind the mystery lights?”

“Jen, you're not going to believe this. Your cousin Kim and her boyfriend Ron are here.”

“Kim is here? Hang on, I'll be down in a second.”

Kim and Ron turned their heads to face each other, “'Be down in a second?'” Ron asked out loud.

Kim furrowed her brow in mild confusion until she thought to look up. Standing on a sturdy tree branch over the fetid water was the silhouette of someone in a long coat. Pale cyan blue eyes peered back from the darkness. Kim instinctively directed her flashlight upwards to the mystery figure, only for her to reveal someone in dark blue riot gear wearing a sleeveless brown duster. Even with her head hidden by a riot helmet with a ballistic mask and glowing lenses, Kim could tell it was Jen.

Jen flicked her wrist and shot a grapnel line out of her gauntlet. The hook wrapped around the branch she was standing on and she then dropped down into the muck a few feet away from the rest of the group. Retracting the grapnel line, she then made her way over to rejoin her teammate and her cousin.

Kim noticed a large, metallic cylindrical device with glowing blue circuitry lines attached to a harness on Jen's back as she approached. As she rejoined everybody, Jen removed her ballistic mask and showed a wide smile of joy.

“Kim!” she exclaimed with her arms open, “This is a wonderful surprise. What are you doing here?”

Rather than hug her cousin, Kim simply extended a hand forward for a handshake. Puzzled, Jen promptly inquired, “You're still not upset about the Reunion, are you”

“I just... need some time to process that you're more different than I always thought you were.”

“Jeez. You sound like my sister when I came out. And besides, that was months ago.”

“Aaanyway, you and Ron were about to tell me what you two were doing out here when Jen buzzed in?” Dave said, trying to shift the topic of discussion back to the business at hand.

“We're tracking an enemy of ours. His name is Gill. He isn't a monster, he's just an angry teenager that for whatever reason, mutated himself and fled here. So we can handle this on our own.” Kim stated assertively.

“I remember Gill from your website. So he mutated himself again, huh...” Jen said that part almost absentmindedly, as if she was focusing on something in particular.

Wanting to defuse a tense situation that seemed to be escalating, Ron promptly went behind Jen and pointed at the device strapped to her back, “SO! Uh..., This seems new! What kind of gadget is this supposed to be?”

Snapping out of her train of thought and smiling with confidence, Jen answered, “It's something me and my dad put together after we got our hands on some Lorwardian salvage. We were hoping to field test it against whatever was spooking the locals around this swamp.”

“Aliens invading, huh? That must have been something. Too bad me and Jen completely missed that party.” Dave said as he clicked his tongue.

“Wait, how could you have _missed_ the Lorwardian Invasion? They hit every major city on the planet.” Kim asked suspiciously.

“Oh, that! It's actually a bit of a funny story. Not 'ha-ha' funny, more 'weird' funny.” Jen answered, “See, just before everything went down for the rest of you, me and my team were tracking down some cultists who stole this ancient tome...”

Sighing, Dave cut Jen off, “Long story short, me and Jen wound up banished to the Sunken City of R'lyeh, Fallen from the Stars. It took our resident demonologist Dr. Daniels five hours to bring us back. He probably would have gotten it done sooner if aliens weren't making everything fall apart as he was doing his research.”

Yet again, Kim and Ron exchanged quizzical looks with each other, “Aw, you two don't need to worry, It all got sorted out in the end!” Jen chimed in.

Almost pouting, Dave added in, “Of course you write the whole thing off. You weren't the one who had a squid for a head for the 50 years we were trapped there.”

That little piece of information snapped both Kim and Ron to attention, “Wait, WHAT?!” Ron shouted.

“I thought you were only gone five hours!” Kim exclaimed.

“Yeah, that's part of what makes it a funny story. See, time is relative. I mean, there are temporal discrepancies between hemispheres right here on Earth, But on other planes of reality..” Jen sheepishly responded.

“Five hours our time is 50 years in R'lyeh.” Dave interrupted. “We were fortunate that we didn't age while we were there.”

“Turns out that if humans get removed from their native plane of existence, we stop ageing! Or at least we age _really_ slowly.” Jen said with an embarrassed grin on her face.

Ron pointed his finger at Dave, then Jen, then back and forth while he struggled to say, “You... two... are over _70 years old?!_ ”

“Aw! You're so sweet for being so generous about that.” Jen said as she blushed and poked her two index fingers together.

_“You're **older** than 70 years old?!”_ Kim said as her jaw practically dropped into the swamp water around them. The very same swamp water that the collected heroes had stopped paying attention to. The very swamp water that something was swimming through.

As Kim and Ron continued to proclaim their amazement over the things Jen and her team had been doing, it was Dave who realized something was off. “Guys...”

With Jen sheepishly trying to play down her age as not a huge concern, Kim and Ron continued to pester her for information. All the while ignoring Dave.

_“GUYS!”_ Dave hollered.

_“WHAT?”_ Kim and Ron hollered back.

Raising his finger to his lips, he said, “Listen...”

At Dave's prompting, everybody stopped talking and listened to their surroundings. And all they heard was... nothing. No birds, no squeaking of bats, the croaking of frogs or even the buzzing of insects. As the silence dawned on them, everybody assumed defensive stances. Jen in particular put back on her ballistic mask. As for Dave, he just placed himself in the centre of the more physically capable heroes.

As if tempting fate, Jen asked, “When does a swamp get so quiet?”

She got her answer when Gill breached the water and clamped his jaws around Jen's midsection. Kim and Ron were taken aback both by the sudden arrival of their quarry and at how large he had become. Gill had his usual mutant face, but now he was at least 10 feet tall at his shoulders. Not only that, but now he had a massive crocodilian tail that made Gill's overall length about 20 feet.

Thankfully for Jen, her body armour was mitigating most of the damage from Gill's teeth. But she was still starting to feel the pressure from his jaws causing strain on her body. She flicked her wrist and a knuckle duster slid over her fist. She then punched Gill right in the gills on his neck, forcing him to drop her.

Jen wound up submerged in the swamp water. When she got back up over the water's surface, she wiped the foul liquid off of her lenses and moaned, “Oh, man! This gear takes forever to clean!”

“I am covered in muck, leaves and twigs, Jen. I think you'll manage.” Dave shouted out.

Meanwhile, Gill was coughing up a fit, “Oh, low blow squeeb!” 

“Says the mutant who bit down on her midsection.” Dave shot back.

Not being one to take being dismissed, Gill spat a blob of slime at Dave, which wound up pinning the young man to a tree. “And now I'm covered in mutagenic slime. Great. Wonder what I'll turn into this time...” he sighed.

The pain from the blow to his gills caused Gill to place his scaly, webbed hands on his knees, “Ooh, that did not feel right...” Gill then burped up a bubble of slime and groaned, “I don't think I'll be doing that again any time soon...”

“Boo-yah! That'll make this all the more easy!” Ron enthused as he assumed a Tai Shing Pek Kwar before charging at Gill. 

All that got Ron in the end was a massive tail slap to his belly. Which promptly sent him flying backwards into a tree so hard it broke in half. Between the blow from Gill's tail and the impact into the tree Ron wound up pinned underneath the broken wood pieces. Thankfully for small miracles, Ron's head wound up above the water level.

Just before he passed out, Ron was able to raise his hand to point back at Gill and half-coherently muttered, “And there's more... where that... came from...” 

“HA! Who's laughing now, Ronnie? All those times I tried to save you for last, and you were always the one to foil my revenge! Not this time, squeeb!” Gill jeered towards his now trapped enemy.

Kim flipped her way directly in front of Gill, Hands on her hips, she glared at him like a disappointed mother and asserted herself, “What are you even trying to do here, Gill? Just come back to Dr. Lurkin's lab and we'll turn you back to normal.”

“This IS my normal, squeeb! I'm finally going to be free from Lurkin out here! And once I get a lair set up, I'll apply to HenchCo. No way they'll turn down the help of an ideal soldier like me!” Gill shouted as he flexed his muscular new body in an arrogant fashion.

Sighing, Kim resigned herself to the fight to come, “Well, at least I tried.” Kim charged at Gill, trying to mislead him as she zig-zagged her way underneath his massive bulk. As Gill lashed out with his claws, Kim ran up his arm to try and land a blow to his gills just like Jen had done. Just before she was able to land a blow to his weak spot with her extended fist, Gill rolled around on his back. All Kim wound up punching was the swamp water underneath.

As her fighting instincts led her, Kim tried to raise her fist back out of the water. But she couldn't. Try as she might, her hand was stuck. From the feel of things, it seemed as if her hand was tangled in some manner of root or thick swamp weed. As Kim frantically tried to free herself, Gill began to lurk over her. As she turned around, she saw that he had raised one of his clawed hands up, ready to strike.

“Once you're out of commission, Ronnie will be devastated. I can't wait to see the look on his face when he realizes his girlfriend is down for the count!”

Just as he was ready to slash Kim's back, Jen reentered the fray. She ran up Gill's tail, all the way up his back to stand on his shoulders. “I don't like the way you see things.”

With lightning fast reflexes, Jen drew her twin combat knives and stuck both blades into each of Gill's eyes. Kim's eyes grew wide with horror as Gill howled in pain, his thrashing prompting Jen to withdraw her knives and jump back down to swampy ground. In a heartbeat, she extended one of the retractable katar blades in her gauntlets and pierced the back of Gill's knee, sending him toppling down to all fours.

“JEN, STOP!!!” Kim screamed.

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO ME!?!” Gill cried out in pain, practically sobbing. He lashed out to his side that had his now wounded leg, hoping to get at Jen. For her part, Jen deftly dodged his strikes and ran up a tree trunk. She used the momentum to launch herself over Gill's body to get at his other side. As she splashed down in the bog, Gill tried to charge at Jen's location with his three good limbs, his jaws wide open.

That is when Jen reached for the metallic contraption on her back. With the press of a button, the cylinder unfolded into the shape of a large two-handed sword. But what stopped Gill from pressing forward with his attack was when the weapon's engine roared to life with the distinct sound of a chainsaw. As the blade revved, a section of toothy tread made its way around the edges of the blade, turning Jen's weapon into what could best be described as some manner of energy chainsword. 

Kim was desperately trying to free herself now. If she didn't get free this instant, Gill was going to die. And for all the headache that he was, Gill never deserved what was happening to him right now. On his end, Gill was trying to position himself in a defensive manner as he desperately floundered about looking for a section of swamp to swim away in.

But when Jen charged at Gill, all he could do was raise him scaly arms in front of him, hoping that his hide would be thick enough to protect him from Jen's weapon. It was not. As Jen's energy blade came down on Gill's arms, she cut through his wrists. As she lopped off both of his hands, Gill's screams lost all bravado. The first few wounds left him with enough courage to try and keep fighting. Now he was bawling like giant, scaly infant. 

“PLEASE! DON'T KILL ME! I'LL GO BACK TO LURKIN, I PROMISE!!! JUST DON'T KILLLL MEEEEE!!!” Gill begged as he tried to push himself away from Jen with his one good leg.

Jen just advanced upon the whimpering mutant. She deactivated her blade, causing it to collapse back into its cylindrical configuration and sheathed it on her back. Jen then pulled a double-barrelled shotgun from underneath her coat and loaded it with two shells as she proceeded forward.

“Aw, what's the matter 'ideal soldier'? Didn't you ever stop to think that some soldiers don't survive combat in one piece?” As Jen made her way up to what was left of Gill's body she stomped her foot onto his chest, sending him down onto his back. She then walked up to his head and put the barrel of her shotgun into Gill's mouth.

“Or that some soldiers need closed casket funerals when they come home?” 

Just as Jen prepared to put her finger on the trigger, her shotgun was yanked away from her by a flying piece of cable. As Jen tracked it's movements, she saw that the cable had been fired from the Kimmunicator on Kim's wrist. She had apparently managed to free herself while Jen was focused on Gill.

Holding Jen's shotgun in her hand, Kim sent her cousin one of the most furious glares to ever appear on her face. She was breathing hard and heavy with anger, and it took all the self-control she could muster to throw Jen's shotgun into the swamp. After floating on top of the water for a brief moment, it sunk beneath the fetid liquid.

“Kim, I'm glad you're okay, but I paid good money for that shotgun!” Jen exclaimed as she raised her hands in disbelief.

“ _THAT_ is what you're worried about?! What the _HECK_ are you doing?!” Kim screamed in fury.

“I was killing a monster. What of it?”

“Gill is _NOT_ a monster! He's _NEVER_ done _ANYTHING_ to warrant this kind of _BRUTALITY!!!_ ”

“Uh, last I checked, he willingly mutated himself. AGAIN. He's got to be put down before his behaviour worsens.”

“Worsens?! Everything Gill has _EVER_ done has been easily fixable. Both his mutation _AND_ the mutations he's inflicted upon others can be cured in an instant by Dr. Lurkin's team!”

“But he has a pattern of behaviour now. I mean, he JUST told you that he considers 'this' to be his normal. He's not identifying as a human being anymore.”

“So he needs therapy! You _DON'T_ just do _THIS_ to someone who _DOESN'T_ deserve it!”

“And I think he does. If something doesn't change, how long before he starts seeing people as chattel, food, or something worse?”

“I just... I just, I don't want _ANYTHING_ to do with you right now, Jen!” Kim snarled as she made her towards Gill to put herself between him and her cousin. “If he dies because of this, it's on _YOUR_ head!”

Tilting to her side to look at Gill, Jen quipped, “I don't think he's in any danger of dying at the moment.”

Kim turned around to look at Gill and a wave of relief swept over her. Right before her eyes, Gill's wounds were closing shut. His knee was completely healed and both of his eyes had reformed. He even had the tiny stumps of a pair of hands on the ends of his arms.

Gill looked at his healing body and let out some giddy laughter. He then looked up to see Kim and Jen looking at him. The image of Jen in her full riot gear with a ballistic mask sent him into a panic. Gill tried, in vain, to hide his massive bulk behind Kim like a small, frightened child.

“I-I'll do whatever you want, Ms. Possible. Just keep that MONSTER away from me!” Gill pleaded as he desperately tried to keep Kim between him and Jen.

“It's going to be okay, Gill. It'll be okay.” Kim said in as comforting a tone as she could muster for a giant fish/crocodile mutant.

Shrugging in disbelief, Jen walked away and headed over to where Dave was pinned to his tree. She took out her combat knife and started to cut away Gill's slime. As Dave brushed the remnants of the ooze of his body, he took a glance over to Gill and Kim. Gill had apparently fallen to his knees and was crying as Kim patted him on his back.

“I'm guessing we aren't invited to the next family reunion, are we?” Dave joked.

“Looks like it.” Jen sighed as she made her way over to Ron.

As he lay there under all that wood, Jen could hear Ron muttering some inane babble as he drooled, “no peanut butter monkey, no..."

Chuckling to herself, Jen turned to Dave and asked, “Help me get this wood off of him?”

“Do I _look_ like a bodybuilder to you?”

“Oh, ha ha.”

.....

The walk back to the Sloth was filled with awkward silence. Kim had to keep herself between Gill and Jen. Whereas Jen had to carry an unconscious Ron while Dave trailed behind the entire group. By the time the group cleared the swamplands and reached the Sloth, Dr. Lurkin's team had managed to arrive thanks to Wade's reports to their lab.

When he saw the giant fishbowl Dr. Lurkin usually brought along as part of his containment methods for him, Gill made a running leap and jumped into the large container himself. He barely fit this time, something that immediately caught Dr. Lurkin's attention. He walked forward in his hazmat suit, taking off his glasses and blinking before placing his spectacles back on his face.

“Well done, Ms. Possible! I'm impressed that you managed to subdue Gil with such minimal difficulty!” the doctor said with pride. Then he noticed Ron's unconscious body in Jen's arms, “Oh, my. Perhaps it was a tad more difficult than I presumed, then?”

“Understatement of the year, Dr. Lurkin.” Kim said in a low voice as she glared at Jen. Two of Dr. Lurkin's men came and picked up Ron by placing their heads under his shoulders. They carried him to the back of one of their hazmat vehicles to assess his condition and administer first aid.

With Ron now out of her arms, Jen made her way to Gill's fishbowl. Seeing her approach caused Gill to thrash in a panic, trying desperately to keep to the side of the bowl opposite of Jen. Rapping her knuckles on the glass, Jen made a simple yet terrifying promise:

“If I ever hear that you went and mutated yourself _again_ , bog boy, I _will_ find you. Because I've been wanting a new set of boots to go with a matching jacket and handbag.”

Hearing such an ultimatum towards his patient, Dr. Lurkin stepped forward with his arms crossed and admonished Jen for her statement, “That was a bit much, don't you think?”

“Nope.” Jen firmly answered as she turned around and headed towards the Sloth.

.....

Kim and Dave were both being sprayed down by Dr. Lurkin's men. Not only did their treatment help decontaminate them from any mutagens Gill may have exposed them to, it washed away the muck from the swamp. Dave in particular was pleased to be just wet instead of wet and filthy.

“Oh, that helps a lot.” he sighed as he reached for a towel to help dry off his clothes. Kim was just silent, not acknowledging her cousin's partner.

Seeing Kim's anger, Dave tried to reach out to her, “You know Jen has reasons for acting the way she did, right? I mean, we've learned not to take chances in our line of work.”

“I've faced off against mad scientists determined to rule the world, ninja man-monkeys that want to harness the power of ancient magical relics and aliens that wanted to destroy the planet. I have never resorted to the kind of brutality Jen demonstrated tonight.” Kim curtly responded.

“And yet, didn't you kick Shego into a live radio tower on the night of your junior prom? Which promptly collapsed _on top_ of her?” Dave shot back with a teasing tone to his voice.

“That was different. She and Drakken pushed me really hard that night. It was a heat of the moment sort of thing. I slipped up.”

“Mistakes can happen in a fight. But in the end, you didn't lose any sleep over what you did. So that was alright because it was personal? Because they were that much of a threat? Or was it because Shego wound up okay in the end?”

Kim just stood in silence, not looking at Dave or giving him a response of any kind. Sighing, Dave took a couple of steps past Kim to face her directly.

“Let me ask you this: how do you feel about Ron killing Warhok and Warmonga?”

“It had to be done.”

“So you were alright with them dying, but not Gill? Why is that?”

“Gill never did anything to warrant dying.”

“Oh? Is that so? Because he left a trail of mild destruction on his way here. He bit down on Jen's midsection in an ambush. If she didn't have her armour on, she could have died. Not only that, but that tail slap he gave Ron probably did some real damage to your own boyfriend.”

“... Everything was going to be okay. Villains escalate the more we fight them. I mean, Drakken once tried to steal all the oxygen on the planet, so...”

“So when a normal human is willing to go through with global genocide, it's alright to treat him with the kid gloves. But when a pair of aliens show up with enough weapons to conquer a planet on their own, it's alright if _they_ die?”

Kim looked at Dave with a stunned look of silence on her face.

“I think maybe you didn't want Gill to die because he used to be human and that there was a chance that he could be human again.”

“What? No!” Kim tried to protest.

“Maybe it's not your conscious train of thought, but you'd be surprised how much our subconscious mind influences our choices and opinions. And you'd be surprised by the kind of monsters human beings can be.” Dave pointed towards Jen waiting by the Sloth, “Just go ask Jen yourself.”

.....

Jen remained covered in the muck from the swamp, so she avoided leaning against Kim's car. She just paced back forth beside the Sloth, taking breaks between the pattern to walk around the car in its entirety. When she saw Kim approach her, she took off her ballistic mask so she could look Kim eye to eye.

“Look, we need to talk before we go our separate ways...” Jen started to say.

“I know. But first things first. The chainsaw and shotgun weren't enough? You had to go threaten Gill that you'd skin him if he mutated again?”

Jen shrugged, “If he's so willing to throw away his humanity, he should be prepared for people to start treating him as less than human.”

“Speaking of less than human, Dave said some things at the decontamination shower that made me think. He said that you probably had some stories to tell me. About humans that can be monsters.” Kim said with her arms crossed as she gave Jen a concerned look.

Sighing, Jen went to unclasp her helmet to take it off. Her shoulder length, raven black hair fell down and she looked at Kim with a stern expression in her piercing blue eyes. “Best thing I can think of was that case I had started to investigate right before coming to the reunion a few months ago.”

“I remember you saying that some people had gone missing in Los Diablos' south side.”

“That's the one. Turns out some women had disappeared. They were all people who were either single parents, had a low income or were of some ethnic minority. As it played out, all of the missing women wound up receiving job offers to work as cleaning staff or as cooks for a lodge out in the California mountains.”

Remembering what Jen told her about the 'Urban Renewal Initiative' back at the reunion, Kim got a sinking feeling in her stomach that something horrible had happened at that lodge. Something that Jen immediately verified.

“Well as it turns out, that lodge was one of those he-man men's lodges. You know the type. Where a bunch entitled, rich white men go to 'be free' from women for a little while. Which makes you wonder: why would they hire women to work for them if the purpose of the lodge was to get away from women?” Jen said that last part with a bitter tone.

“The answer was that those privileged, arrogant pieces of human _garbage_ , well, they were luring those women up there so they could _hunt_ them. For _sport_. They threw them into the woods and then chased them with their guns on their ATVs because _they could_. And they believed that because they were at the top of society, they had _the divine right_ to do whatever they wanted to the people below them in the world.” A furious look unlike anything Kim had ever seen flashed on Jen's face as she spoke that last part.

Kim's eyes grew wide with horror as she put her hand to her mouth. Tears were starting to form in her eyes and she felt her knees get weak.

“It gets better!” Jen said sarcastically. “Once they killed those women, they skinned and stuffed them like a prize kill. Mounted their heads on the wall and kept a hideous trophy room filled with their victims. But not only did these men do it to get their jollies, I found some evidence that they were bringing their _teenage sons_ to this 'hunting retreat' because they felt that _'real men need to know how to kill'!_ ”

With venom in her voice, Jen continued, “And before you start to ask yourself 'what were the police doing about this?' I've got a surprise for you. Spoiler alert: among the business magnates and the media moguls of this hunting lodge, there was the ADA for Los Diablos, along with the LDPD Police Chief and a California Superior Court judge!”

Kim's knees gave way and she wound up supporting herself on the Sloth's hood. She was also fighting not to vomit. However bad she felt about the Urban Renewal Initiative, this was a thousand times worse. As the scenario played over and over in her mind, something felt out of place as she put the pieces together.

“Wait a minute... After you reported the Urban Renewal Initiative to Global Justice, they sent agents to gut and rework the city's infrastructure. HOW did they miss these, these...”

“I don't know. Something is seriously wrong with how Los Diablos is run. It's not surprising, all things considered...” Jen's train of thought trailed off for a bit as she stared out into space. Shaking her head as she got back on track, she continued, “Which is why me and Dave had to make our own justice.” Jen looked out at all the hazmat trucks around them and spotted Dave checking in on Ron.

“You never did ask what Dave contributed to my team. Well, his surname of Seer is very apt. Because there is a history of spiritual mediums being in his family. He can see and communicate with spirits and they sometimes send him advanced warning of crimes or tragedies about to occur.”

“Sadly, we did not get such a notice this time. Dave was contacted by the collective spirits of lodge's victims. They cried out to him for justice, so we went to investigate. And when we found out what those _men_ did and _who_ was in their ranks, we decided to make them suffer for what they did. Dave took the spirits of those women into himself and became... like something out of a horror movie. And not the cheesy gore fests American horror movies. More like a surreal Japanese horror movie. Anyway, between him, me and Tasha, we hunted down those lodge members all over Los Diablos.”

__

__

Kim looked up at Jen with genuine fear in her eyes, “You _killed_ them? I thought you could never take another person's life!”

With an exhausted chuckle, Jen rubbed the bridge of her nose before looking back at Kim. The filthy swamp water around the t-zone of her face gave her a haunted look.

“Well, so did I. But everybody has their breaking point. And those _monsters_ found mine. But then I realized that they _were_ monsters. So, like all the other monsters I have fought over the years, I put them _down_. They were probably even worse than your typical wendigo or vampire because they weren't possessed or cursed. They were nothing like that. This was just pure and petty human greed and hatred at work. And now, Los Diablos is a little bit safer.”

Kim looked at Jen, trying to comprehend who this stranger was in front of her that was wearing her cousin's face. As Jen recollected her story, her eyes were filled with an anger and darkness Kim had never seen before in a human being. The only person that came close to the hatred and contempt Jen was displaying was... _Warhok_ of all people.

Mustering her strength, Kim composed herself as best she could. She looked Jen right in the eyes and said, “You know, for all your talk about Gill disassociating with humanity tonight, the same can be said for you! While those people at that hunting lodge definitely needed to be stopped by any means possible, you took it a step further. You stopped seeing them _as people_ at all! That is the very same thing you accused Gill of becoming tonight!”

Jen was taken aback by what Kim just said. The anger in her face disappeared, and for all appearances, Cousin Jen was back. Looking down at her feet in embarrassment, she rubbed the back of her neck as she thought about the truth that Kim had just exposed.

“Not only are you disassociating with these “monsters”, your team is heading down a _very_ dark path! You, acting as some judge, jury and executioner. Dave, literally taking the tortured spirits of the dead into himself to become some... engine of vengeance! And you're _still_ working with Tasha! A _literal_ vampire!” Kim continued as she stamped her foot on the ground to assert her point. 

Jen couldn't deny what Kim was saying. Sighing, she looked up at Kim and said, “I already told you the difference between us is that you fight supervillains while I fight monsters. I guess there are a couple of other differences as well. A) My monsters have the good sense to try and be discreet about their atrocities.”

“And B),... I think I may have been doing this for too long. Like, _extremely_ too long. While I don't regret what I did tonight, I should try to remember that not all 'supervillains' are like my usual foes. I guess I should... 'make the punishment fit the crime' a bit more often.”

Chuckling, Jen looked back at her feet for a bit before making eye contact with Kim, “Heh. Maybe I should try to be a bit more like you and not try to go straight to 11 right off the bat like I did tonight, huh? In the end that's just as much a slippery slope as when you stop identifying as a human being.”

Groaning as she did it, Jen stretched her arms and body after saying her piece. She then eyed the decontamination men and started walking towards them. As she left, she said, “It's been a long night, and I seriously need to clean up before we summon Dave's car to get us back to Los Diablos. You should probably check up on Ron."

Kim leaned against the Sloth with her back towards the vehicle. She was trying to process everything Jen told her. While it was clear that Jen was definitely fighting a different battle than her, Kim's anger over the night began to fade as she realized that maybe her cousin wasn't as much of an extremist as she had come to believe. After all, it takes a big person to admit that they might not be right all the time.

Walking towards the assembled hazmat trucks, Kim kept an eye out for Ron. He was standing next to the open end of one of the trucks and seemed to be saying goodbye to Dave. Seeing Kim approach, Dave waved farewell as he went to talk to Jen with the decontamination men. Now that she had a good look at Ron, it was clear that he had been roughed up, but would be fine. He had a bandage wrapped around his forehead and several band-aids to cover up where some splinters had been removed.

“Hey, KP!” Ron said as he saw Kim approach, “What did I miss?”

As she placed her hand in his, Kim could feel more of emotional strength return to her. She looked Ron in the eyes and said, “Where to begin?

****

**Author's Notes**

**So here is my first story in a few months! Sorry for not posting for so long, but I had issues to deal with on my end of the screen. I had a sobering realization about my life, which sent me into a bit of a depressive funk. Despite wanting to continue with Lingering Fear, I just couldn't muster the creative energy to continue with it. Or any artistic project, really.**

**But I've spoken to my doctor. He's adjusted the dosage of my medication, and I feel so much more passionate about both writing and drawing, so I should see an upswing in productivity in the next few months. And yes, I will continue with Lingering Fear. I just needed something to help me start getting passionate about writing again. In addition, I have found myself a therapist, so fingers crossed that works out for me. >/b>**

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**Another thing that's reduced my productivity is the fact that I am currently acting as the GM for my Pathfinder group. As such, a lot of my creative energy has been redirected towards that endeavour. Which is because I usually have to host a game every week. But our campaign is almost over, so I should be free to redirect my energy back into writing in a few months.**


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